The present invention relates to a product aligner device, in particular for items fed to a manufacturing machine.
In particular, the present invention finds application in the industrial manufacture of edible products, for example candy and chocolates and the like, where the device is employed advantageously for the purpose of feeding such products toward wrapping machines albeit any specific reference made herein to this type of use implies no limitation in scope.
It is a conventional practice within the art field of manufacturing edible products to make use of aligner devices by which discrete items advancing in a random flow are taken up, suitably ordered and oriented, and conveyed along a feed path toward a wrapping machine.
In a first version, such aligner devices are composed essentially of a drum, and, located within the drum, a disc rotatable about a substantially vertical axis.
The disc present a flat and horizontal top surface and is circumscribed by the walls of the drum, which are substantially cylindrical and concentric with the disc, and rotatable about a corresponding axis angled marginally in relation to the axis of rotation of the disc.
The disc and the walls of the drum rotate at suitably coordinated angular velocities, and are associated mutually in such a way as to establish paths along which products directed en masse onto the top surface of the disc are aligned, oriented uniformly and caused to advance progressively, singly and in ordered succession, under the impetus of the centrifugal force to which they become subject through direct contact with the surface of the disc and with the walls of the drum.
Aligner devices of conventional type as outlined above are entirely functional and efficient; when connected up to modern wrapping machines typified by notably high operating speeds, however, the angular velocity of the disc has to increase significantly, and the resulting centrifugal forces are of an intensity such that the products tend to bunch against the walls of the drum, around the periphery of the disc. Consequently, the products are unable to align correctly.
This drawback is heightened in situations where the disc is not altogether flat, but embodied with a convex surface designed to accentuate the effect of the centrifugal force on the products.
In a second version, product aligner devices of the type in question generally comprise a disc rotatable about a substantially vertical axis and affording a top surface onto which the products are deposited en masse.
The disc is caused to rotate at a speed such that the centrifugal force acting on the single product will never exceed the frictional force existing between the product and the disc, whatever the position occupied by the product on the top surface.
Each product deposited on the disc is made to advance along a circular path presenting fixed obstacles by which it is intercepted and diverted onto successive substantially circular paths of increasingly greater radius, to the point ultimately of passing onto a path that extends around the periphery of the disc. In the course of its progress around the peripheral path, the product is diverted onto an outfeed conveyor running substantially tangential to the disc.
As a result of the frictional contact with the surface of the disc and the action of the fixed obstacles, the products deposited onto the disc en masse are aligned, uniformly oriented and advanced progressively one by one in such a way as to pass onto the outfeed conveyor in orderly single file.
Aligner devices of this second type are again entirely functional and efficient; when connected up to modern wrapping machines typified by notably high operating speeds, however, the angular velocity of the disc must increase significantly, and the resulting centrifugal forces are of an intensity such as to outbalance the frictional force existing between the product and the disc, causing the products to become detached from the surface of the disc and bunch in disorderly fashion on the path extending around the periphery of the disc.
The drawback in question is heightened in the event of there being a low coefficient of friction between the products and the surface of the disc.
The object of the present invention is to provide a product aligner device which, unlike the conventional devices described above, will allow of controlling the centrifugal forces acting on products supported by and in movement over the surface of the disc.